Holcombe

thorized correspondence, apparently looking to-
ward peace negotiations but really designed to
foster the Northern anti-Administration move-
ment and to aid Confederate efforts to secure
foreign recognition. After his return from Can-
ada and the reelection of Lincoln, Holcombe
made a report to Secretary Benjamin (Nov. 16),
advising further encouragement of disaffection
in the North and the use of money and talent
without stint with the hope of promoting anarchy
and the separation of the Northwest from the
United States (Pickett Papers, Library of Con-
gress: New York Herald, July 31, 1872).

On Jan. 2, 1863, seeking to benefit his health
and desiring to provide a home and employment
for valuable slaves which his wife had inherited,
he had purchased a farm of 600 acres at Bellevue,
Bedford County. Settling here at the close of
the war, he edited Literature in Letters, a vol-
ume of selections which was published in 1866,
and in that year opened a private school which
attracted students from prominent Southern
families. The attendance increased from forty-
three students in 1866-67 to 101 in 1869-70, but
decreased thereafter because of Holcombe's fail-
ing health and his natural ineptitude for business.
He died at Capon Springs, W. Va., and was
buried in the Presbyterian cemetery, Lynchburg,
Va., beside his parents. He was survived by his
wife and six children.

[Alumni Bull, Univ. of Vet., Feb. 1897; J. S. Patton,
Jefferson, Cobeli, and the Univ. of Va. (1906); P. A.
Bruce, Hist, of the Univ. of Va., vol. Ill (1921); Jour.

fi.t J.QUJ.—VJ \ t-yvt^—vajf vuio. a., •"•*•«•> • j » * » J» *•'• *VI,>M*

ardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of
the Confederacy (1905), vol. II; J. M. Callahan, The
Diplomatic Hist, of the Southern Confederacy (1901) ;
J. W. Headley, Confed. Operations in Canada and N. Y.
(1906) ; Confed. diplomatic correspondence in the
Pickett Papers, Lib. of Cong. ; M. C. Cabell, Sketches
and Recollections of Lynchburg (1858) ; Jesse Seaver,
"The Holcomb(e) Genealogy" (1925), mimeographed
copy in Lib. of Cong. ; certain information from mem-
bers of the Holcombe family.] , jt

HOLCOMBE, WILLIAM HENRY (May
29, i825-Nov. 28, 1893), homeopathic physician,
author, was born at Lynchburg, Va., third son
of Dr. William James Holcombe and Ann Eliza
(Clopton) Holcombe, and brother of James
Philemon Holcbmbe [q.v.']. His early educa-
tion was obtained at Washington College, now
Washington and Lee University. He had just
prepared to enter the junior class at Yale when
his parents liberated their slaves and rejected a
large property in slaves left them by a childless
uncle. This procedure, so contrary to local pub-
lic sentiment, forced the removal of the family
to Indiana. Holcombe at once prepared himself
in his father's office to study medicine and en-

Holcombe
tered the medical department of the University
of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in
1847. He remained with his father for three
years, and then removed to Cincinnati, where he
practised from 1850 to 1852. During this pe-
riod he observed the excellent results of home-
opathy in the treatment of cholera and became
a convert to that system of therapeutics. In
1852 he married Rebecca Palmer and settled in
Natchez, Miss., where he was associated in prac-
tice with Dr. F. A. W. Davis. In 1853, he and
Dr. Davis were appointed to the staff of the Mis-
sissippi State Hospital. Their appointment en-
countered such a storm of indignation on the
part of the general medical profession that the
state legislature investigated the action of the
trustees, which was approved when it was shown
that they had proceeded because of the supe-
rior results obtained by the homeopathists Davis
and Holcombe in the yellow-fever epidemics
and in other diseases. In 1855 Holcombe re-
moved to Waterproof, La., but in 1862 returned
to Natchez and two years later settled in New
Orleans which was his home thereafter. Al-
though his parents had been pronounced expo-
nents of emancipation, he came to believe in
negro slavery as a just and necessary institution.
After the election of Lincoln he published a pam-
phlet, The Alternative: A Separate Nationality,
or the Africanization of the South (1860), in
which he advocated the secession, peaceably if
possible, of the Cotton States.
As a medical man, Holcombe's national repu-
tation was gained through his large experience
and great success in the management of yellow-
fever epidemics, which were altogether too fre-
quent and widespread in those days. One of his
most significant writings on this subject ap-
peared in the Special Report of the Homeo-
pathic Yellow Fever Commission, of which he
was chairman, formed under the auspices of the
American Institute of Homeopathy. The report
was presented to Congress in 1879 and published
the same year. In 1874, at Niagara Falls, Hol-
combe was elected to the presidency of the Amer-
ican Institute of Homeopathy, but illness pre-
vented him from serving at the session of 1875.
His medical writings include: The Scientific
Basis of Homeopathy (1852), On the Nature
and Limitations of the Homoeopathic Law
(1858), What is Homoeopathy (1864) > and How
I Became a Homos opath (1869).
In addition to his professional interests, he
was active in the study of Swedenborgianism, to
which he had become a convert in 1852. He pub-
lished Our Children in Heaven (1868), The
Sexes Here and Hereafter (1869), and The